


Outnumber the Downs

by ephemeraltea (temporarily_obsessed)



Series: Tin Roofs [4]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Mentioned Drug Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-04
Updated: 2014-02-04
Packaged: 2018-01-11 03:42:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1168255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/temporarily_obsessed/pseuds/ephemeraltea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason has done a lot of things. It’s easy to regret them… he’d rather just forget, put on a different face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Outnumber the Downs

**Author's Note:**

> The prologue for Jason. Warnings for angst and dark themes- drug use, child prostitution, uncaring police, death. Among other things. Those are probably the worst, though. Let me know if I need to tag more.
> 
> Title taken from the lyrics of Mumford & Sons’ Not in Nottingham.

Jason isn’t dumb. He isn’t blind. He isn’t lucky, and he doesn’t have a whole lot of things going for him- but he’s plenty smart and his eyes work just fine. That’s why, when Dad’s been gone for a little over a month, Jason stops pretending he’s coming back. That’s why, when Mom stops going to work and taking drugs and forgetting to act a like he needs her (because Jason does, and he loves her), Jason does what he needs to keep the apartment and buy food.

It’s little things, at first- he runs messages, for a little while, which would be okay except he gets the snot beat out of him when the slip of paper he hands somebody doesn’t say what they want it to. (Jason didn’t even know what it said.)

After that, he doesn’t run messages. He kind of doesn’t want to get beat up for something that stupid- for something that he didn’t do, too. If Jason’s gonna get bruised and hurt, he wants it to be for something worth-while. For something important, or for somebody who needs it, maybe.

It’s about then that he starts picking pockets. From there, he learns all sorts of things- from other kids who are good enough to give him tips so long as he leaves certain places to them, from watching the ones who don’t talk to others, and from the hookers who think he’s sweet. They know where he’s coming from- that he’s got family that needs him to bring money in, that despite that he’s really mostly alone, that yeah, they’ve all got it pretty bad, but it could be worse, right? Batman makes the gang wars and shootings a little less bad (though it’s hard to imagine they could’ve gotten much worse), soup is cheap, and the kid in traffic colors that follows Batman is polite and funny to their kind (the kind that the rest of the city would like to forget is there).

And for a little while, the small stealing is enough. The wallets and trinkets and stuff like that, stuff he can pawn. Eventually it’s not.

Jason doesn’t remember the first time he did it, probably made himself forget over time, but he knows it was before Mom died. He was maybe eleven? Maybe a little younger? He’s not sure. He doesn’t like to think about it, because even if he doesn’t remember specifics, he knows it was awful.

(Because it always was.)

He only gets taken to the station twice- which is a surprise, really, to him. He sure does it a hell of a lot more than twice. It’s not like Jason does it every night or anything, just when it’s really bad and he needs the money- but he does need the money too often.

Jason’s smart about it, though. After the first time he gets caught- a lady named Beth helps him. Well, she goes by Starla the same way he goes by Jamie or Sam, but her name is really Beth. (That’s what she told him, anyway. He wouldn’t blamed her much if she was lying.) She tells him some ways to avoid getting caught, or at least getting booked- because everyone who works knows there’s a difference- and makes sure he at least has certain things to keep from getting sick, for the most part. She tells him not to let any pimp get to him, that it’s important unless he wants to do this every night, for the rest of his life.

He likes Beth, and he knows to listen to her advice; she’s smart, too, but she hadn’t had anyone tell her that kind of stuff until it was too late. She’s kind of young, probably not even twenty, but she’s been walking and working since she wasn’t much older than Jason.

But since he only does that sometimes, Jason learns other stuff, too. He learns how to reinforce a cardboard box and how to stake out corners of abandoned buildings. He learns how to work small cons (but he doesn’t like those so much). He learns how to really hide. Most importantly of all, he learns how to _fight_.

Most of it he picks up as he goes, some from his childhood, some from his pick-pocket friends, some from the working girls (the ones who can), some from instinct. Some of it, the stuff he has to work the hardest to learn- he watches Robin do, and then mimicks until he gets right. Jason can’t do all the stuff Robin can, of course- he isn’t _suicidal_ , thanks- but he can jump off a story or two and land right, can kick maybe even better than Robin, and can do some of those weird combos that built up oomph or some shit like that.

He never feels any guilt in fighting “dirty” or going for the fastest way out of the fight, though. Maybe Robin can get away with that, but Jason doesn’t have a scary tall man in black to beat anybody who hurts him bad enough up. He doesn’t have anyone, mostly, just a few acquaintances and sometimes Beth.

(Until, of course, she gets killed. It’s not even about her. Just one of the crazies on the loose, and she was in car, working, when the car got blown up.

Jason takes a special sort of bitter, angry glee that she fucked up the politician whose car she was in’s reputation in the way she died. He still would have rather just had her live.)

He takes a house job after that.

It isn’t long until Jason invests in a cloth ski-mask, a little bit torn above the eye. He sews it shut, the way Mom taught him ages ago, with red thread. It looks kind of stupid, so he makes it into an X. A bright red X, marking the spot that Gotham well and truly fucked up- forgot- and fucked with. Marking the person who’s gonna fuck them up right back, take their stuff and make sure there’s at least some soup for the kids worst off. He’ll be Crime Alley’s fucking Robin Hood.

Robin’s taken, though. So he’ll just be Red X.

* * *

Jason thinks that Bruce Wayne is an idiot and his house is very nice; his butler is awesome, in both the modern and old-fashioned meanings- _like, awesome Poseidon, god of the sea, to be feared and respected_ awesome, but also _very very cool and smart_ \- and the Batcave is beyond his wildest dreams. Also Robin is Dick Grayson and dating a model. Which. Okay. (Stephanie Brown is also Robin and Batgirl and has some very nice- you know what, later.)

Red X, or at least better phrased “the part of him he keeps sarcastic and fast and generally unimpressed with everything” agrees that the butler is awesome but would like to add that Batman is an idiot, too.

“Really? You decided the best way to catch me was to spread rumors about something fancy in your house to lure me there, and you didn’t even consider that I would find your super-secret underground lair? Hideout? What do you call it?”

“The Cave,” Batgirl-who-was-Robin mutters, and Red X likes to think that she’s trying not to smile. “The _Batcave_.”

“Wow, how original,” Red X snarks cheerfully. “Do you call the butler Batler, too?”

There’s a sort of silence Jason can’t quite interpret. Dick-Robin-Nightwing-person looks somewhere between gleeful and horrified. It’s about then Batman (Bruce Wayne? Really?) returns with some printed-out sheets.

Way to kill trees, Batman.

“Jason Todd,” he grates out. Jason rolls his neck and delicately tests the zip ties binding his wrists behind him, to the chair.

“Been a while since I was called that, actually,” Jason smiles a little sharply. “Have to say no one’s ever said it quite like you, Brucie.”

He’s pretty sure one of the ex-Robins are choking on either spit or laughter. He’s not sure which. It doesn’t matter much. Jason’s trying not to think about if that’s his rap sheet Batman has, because. Because there are things on it he’d like to forget.

That’s why he chooses to mouth off.

“The question is, Wayne,” Jason says, looking this man in the eye without the protection of his mask between them, the cowl still protecting Batman (even if Jason knows who he is, now), “what are you going to do about a thief knowing your id? Limited options, really.”

Jason rolls his head again.

“You can make me disappear, but with both of our track records, it won’t take. You can bribe me, but how could you trust me? And it isn’t your style. You can call up one of your alien-magic-whatever friends and make me forget- but from what I hear, that’s invasive and not one hundred percent reliable. Or. You can kill me. And everyone knows the Bat doesn’t kill. So.”

He shrugs, as best he can with his wrists, knees, and ankles bound. Another silence follows his analysis.

“Or,” Nightwing says, and looks at Batman. They stare at each other, and Batgirl gives a snicker.

“Really?”

Nightwing shrugs.

“Not here,” Batman snaps. “Not in front of-“

“Jason,” Nightwing reminds him, and Jason does not like his tone.

(There are worse things, it turns out, than getting caught by the bats.

They can decide to reform you.)


End file.
